My New Remlin 1895 Guide gun experience thread

mikeybuck · Sep 26, 2017

I feel I got lucky with my RM marked marlin 45/70

thorborg · Sep 26, 2017

No experience with newer Marlins or Henry's, but my Marlin seems to have the perfect weight to horsepower ratio effectively mitigating adverse shoulder thumping while slinging an ounce of lead.
Come to think of it, I have taken more abuse from a plastic bodied 30-06 with full packed 180 gr Hornady's, (though during bench rest constraint's).

djharteloo · Sep 26, 2017

My buddy just bought a brand new 1895 guide gun from Sportsman's. We're gonna go shoot it this weekend and see if it groups. The fit and finish is okay at best, but it does appear to at least have rifling. So we'll see. Definitely think I will be going with a Henry though.

osprey · Oct 4, 2017

Well I found my Marlin and have it in hand. I had to pay basically the same as what they get new but it is a 2007 vintage stainless 18" barrel model. The fit and finish is great and the action is pretty damn smooth even though it has not seen many rounds. The trigger is probably 4 pounds or so but has a glass clean break. The rifling looks great and I am sure it will shoot great. It came with a nice peep arangement but I will be converting to a scope with a rail and back up irons. Hopefully I can get out and shoot it this weekend to get a baseline before it is off to the smith to be threaded.

osprey · Oct 7, 2017

My JM Marlin came with a skinner rear peep otherwise it was all stock. A good cleaning and some minor action slicking along with some trigger spring tweaking and I turned my attention to a scope. I had already bought a ghost ring sight rail system for the Remlin that went away so I installed it on the JM. I chose the lowest rings I could find which were low Burris extreme. The scope is a Leupold 1-4 vx2. Unloaded weight is 7 3/4#. I may get a Ranger Point scope mount and sight system in the future so I can have back up sights ready to go by simply removing scope. I do not prefer scout scopes so that is out. I will shoot it for the first time tomorrow and go from there. Looking forward to my reacquaintence with a lever gun for hunting.

osprey · Oct 8, 2017

Well I couldn't be happier with my first range session. I slung a total of 30rds downrange from mild to med low. All went bang and hit the target board barring the one where I accidentally had the stupid safety on. It clustered most if not all groups very tightly at 50 yds. I only shot 3 shots at 100 yds and they landed at 1moa. She is definitely a keeper. I used leatherhead coated 390 gr Rnfp bullets and Speer Spfn 400 gr bullets. Powders were Trailboss, 2400,700x, and Varget. These are a few thoughts I had after the session.
1. The trigger is fine and I won't mess with it anymore. I still haven't put a trigger gauge on it but I feel it is around 4# and glass break clean.
2. The 1-4 Leupold scope is a great match for this gun and I am pleased with the low mount position.
3. While trailboss was plenty accurate I am not sure I can get enough of those little Cheerios in the case without compressing them to reach my goal of 1050 fps for my light sub load. 14 gr of it gave 915 fps over the magnetospeed. Imr warns against compressed Tboss loads as it changes burn rate.
4. 45 gr of Varget gave an average of 1160 fps. 22.5 gr of 2400 gave a 1240 fps average. Moving forward I will try larger charges of each along with the rl7 I just picked up to try and reach my goal of 1600-1700 fps for my serious work loads. Still waiting for some 405gr Gas checked hard cast Lbt's to show up. I may even try reducing the Varget loads to try and get to sub velocities as well as Unique.
5. This thing is a gas to shoot and I can hardly wait for my next range session. Cheers!